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What he thought of her she knew, what he was capable of saying to her she had felt; yet they were married, for all that, and marriage meant that a woman should cleave to the man with whom, uttering tremendous vows, she had stood at the altar.

— Henry James The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

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Marriage

More quotes by Henry James

The superiority of one man's opinion over another's is never so great as when the opinion is about a woman.

The Tragic Muse (1890)

It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

Hawthorne (1879)

The time-honored bread-sauce of the happy ending.

Theatricals: Second Series (1895)

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

The Ambassadors (1903)

She gave an envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to plunge into the healing waters of action.

The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

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The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance (1893)

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

Samuel Johnson

The best way to worship God is to love your wife.

Victor Hugo Les Misérables (1862)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry James (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.